MOTOGP
FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / MARCH 26, 2017
LOSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT / DOHA, QATAR
P54
the Honda on laps 16 and 17. He
was just half a second behind at
the finish.
Both had felt obliged to switch
from the preferred hard front
to the medium, because of the
Dovi was once again second (to a Ya-
maha) in the desert, this time by less than
half a second. He'd taken a tire gamble on
the grid, swapping from a medium to a soft
rear. "The gamble was right. We thought
that the race would be slower. When I was
leading I was able save the tire, trying to
be consistent." In the end, however, "I
tried everything, but Maverick was faster.
He saw my negative points and overtook
me in the right place."
Rossi was delighted with third after
struggling in testing and practice. "Before
the race, I thought I would be lucky to fin-
ish in the top five," he said after qualifying
tenth. "We arrived from a difficult period.
From Sepang tests, I never felt good with
the bike. But something changed from
Thursday to Friday, I was still quite slow,
but I started to improve."
Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) had
played his part in the battle up front, but
dropped away to an ultimately distant
fourth, almost caught at the end by Repsol
Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa. The latter
had been spurred to a late surge after
Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Gresini Racing)
had come blasting through from 15th on
the early laps, and put the Aprilia ahead of
(Left) We were lucky to get a
MotoGP race at all after the rain
played havoc with the teams and
riders. (Below) Andrea Iannone
(29) was strong in the early stages
but crashed out on lap 11.
